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Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

As far as female characters being subjects of humour goes, Nebula in GotG2 has a few stand out moments ("It's not ripe") and Valkyrie in Ragnarok... keels over drunk in her dramatic introduction. I'll have to rewatch the Ant-Mans to refresh my memory on Hope. And Mantis and Drax are comedy gold, of course.

So I'd say the movies are getting more even on that front as more female characters join the cast.

As for why people want a Black Widow movie, it's because ScaJo in tight black outfit is hawt, duh. It's too bad we haven't yet gotten a Black Widow movie, but we got Ghost in the Shell, and that's almost the same thing.

...

Fight me.

"It's the fate of all things under the sky,
to grow old and wither and die."

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

Originally Posted by Frozen_Feet

As far as female characters being subjects of humour goes, Nebula in GotG2 has a few stand out moments ("It's not ripe") and Valkyrie in Ragnarok... keels over drunk in her dramatic introduction. I'll have to rewatch the Ant-Mans to refresh my memory on Hope. And Mantis and Drax are comedy gold, of course.

So I'd say the movies are getting more even on that front as more female characters join the cast.

As for why people want a Black Widow movie, it's because ScaJo in tight black outfit is hawt, duh. It's too bad we haven't yet gotten a Black Widow movie, but we got Ghost in the Shell, and that's almost the same thing.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

"They had no idea the thing would make money" is a completely ridiculous assertion. If they didn't think it would have made money, it wouldn't have been greenlit, period.

Not sure if you're nitpicking grammar again, but I don't think he means that statement literally.

Since apparently it's not obvious, "they have no idea the thing would make money" most likely doesn't literally mean that the Marvel folks made an expensive movie thinking that most likely nobody would watch it. A more rational reading is that Black Panther wasn't designed to be a by-the-numbers money maker. In contrast, something like Iron Man, or pretty much anything from Michael Bay, is something that most producers are pretty confident will make money--and at the very least, incredibly unlikely to lose money even if everything goes wrong. Even Kingdom of the Crystal Skull more than quadrupled its original budget. There are certain traits that--at least to those in charge--signify a better, safer path to making money. Black Panther simply didn't check many of the boxes. It didn't have a well-known, bankable lead. Chadwick Bosman is without a doubt a great actor, but he wasn't the sort of household name like Will Smith or Liam Neeson who reliably draw viewers to even mediocre movies. The most well-known cast members played supporting roles that really didn't lend themselves to promoting the movie, beyond having "Also starring Lupita Nyong'o" on the promotional materials.

In TV for example, even as reality TV grows more diverse in terms of niche subject-matter, it's also become a bit more homogeneous in terms of using the same structuring and psychological techniques to get more people watching more habitually without adding more budget. In Hollywood, the guys in charge know that if you're going to have a big budget movie, there are certain traits that are likely to get more butts in seats. Moreover, there are other things that could pay off in a big way (both critically and financially), but could also backfire. This is why we have a huge variety of movies. Cheap ones that will probably have a mediocre reception, but will nonetheless turn a huge profit by virtue of a shoestring budget. Blockbusters where the priority is to make money, and perhaps more importantly, minimize any risk that it will waste a multi-million dollar budget. Oscar-bait. And when you have a franchise where multiple movies contribute to the perception of the same brand, I find it completely plausible that they would greenlight a movie where everyone thought, "Okay, there's a huge chance that we won't make a lot of money because we're alienating the hyper-conservative, borderline-racist demographic because they'll be annoyed by how much we're 'pushing diversity and social justice crap,' but we also owe it to the true fans to tell Black Panther's story in a good way, and if we happen to get some good reviews that will be good for the franchise in the long-run." Although honestly, at this point they're probably thinking "I don't care what your focus groups and critics say--we're Marvel, it'll make money."

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

Originally Posted by Xyril

Although honestly, at this point they're probably thinking "I don't care what your focus groups and critics say--we're Marvel, it'll make money."

This is exactly what they were thinking. Think about this logically - if they had low expectations for Black Panther, the budget would have reflected that as a riskier investment. Black Panther's budget meanwhile was on par with far more proven properties like Iron Man 2 and Guardians 2, and considerably higher than their other first-time solo outings like Captain America First Avenger, Doctor Strange and Ant-Man. It also doesn't include the massive marketing push they made for the movie, which included unique black-targeted expenses like getting Kendrick Lamar to make an album for the movie or specific sports-based advertising buys. These are not the attitudes of a low-expectations project. So I stand by my statement - his assertion is completely ridiculous, as is the defense of it.

Originally Posted by The Giant

But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

Originally Posted by Psyren

This is exactly what they were thinking. Think about this logically - if they had low expectations for Black Panther, the budget would have reflected that as a riskier investment. Black Panther's budget meanwhile was on par with far more proven properties like Iron Man 2 and Guardians 2

Why wouldn’t Disney make a major push for Black Panther to be a moderately popular for diversity sake. You yourself are saying their budget is on par of other recent marvel movies (why should it have the budget earlier films).

If they thought the sort of film making of Black Panther is popular, the question then is why they hadn’t tried something like it earlier.

The bigger issue is that Disney, and Hollywood in general, hasn’t exactly been very exicited about making movies with black casts and black directors. History shows that the success of these movies have happened every so often but that hasn’t change how Hollywood has treated such movies in the past.

Perhaps Time magazine is right and this is the beginning of a new era, but if Disney predicted Black Panther’s runaway success (and the CEO effusive comments never included a comment of “we always knew it”), they would have been quite exceptional among Hollywood studios.

There are now 20 Marvel movies in the MCU. Of these movies, there’s exactly one with a black lead, and one with a woman named in the title. The idea that this is intentional is entirely consistent with the way Hollywood has treated such movies for decades.

Originally Posted by Morty

It would have been awesome if the writers had put as much thought into it as you guys do.

The laws of physics are not crying in a corner, they are bawling in the forums.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

I agree with Reddish Mage. Obviously Marvel expected Black Panther to be successful, otherwise they wouldn't have made it. However, "successful" in typical MCU solo-movie context could mean something in the range of $300-$400 million domestic (that's what higher-grossing entries like GOTG or Civil War made) or even lower (Winter Soldier made about $260 million domestic).

Prior to the movie's release, I saw no indications that anyone was expecting it to make $600 mil domestic, or to outgross Infinity War domestically, or to have the highest worldwide gross of any MCU solo movie. It blew expectations out of the water. It was a wake-up call to Hollywood that there's a huge unmet demand for action movies with diverse leads.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

Obliterated expectations does not equal expectations were low. If you dont agree with that, there is nothing to discuss, at least not with me, end of post/story.

Originally Posted by The Giant

But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

So if the scale of commercial success majority black/acted/directed/written movies was 1 to 10, Black Panther scored something like 30.

Originally the discussion sounded like believe in Disney's expectations ranged from "failure" to "they predicted exactly what happened." Now it sounds more like the only thing to argue is that "Disney's expectations weren't a 5, it was really at least an 8."

I don't find that distinction very interesting.

More interesting is whether the idea that majority-minority-movies can't make it big is an actual thing that Hollywood studios actually believe. Whether Disney executives buy into this idea (maybe their movies are unrepresentative for other reasons?), or whether Disney is willing to promote movies for diversity sake.

By the way, didn't this discussion come from one about how Marvel Movies feature a lot of shirtless men?

Originally Posted by Morty

It would have been awesome if the writers had put as much thought into it as you guys do.

The laws of physics are not crying in a corner, they are bawling in the forums.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

I like Marvel movies because I enjoy Superheroes, and I like that the MCU has had a story that continues through multiple movies. Also I like many of the character arcs we see, such as Tony Stark’s and Steve Rogers’ arcs. One I think that was underrated was Scarlet Witch’s arc from Age of Ultron to Infinity War. She goes from this path of vengeance with her brother, realizes that Ultron is unstable, helps defeat Ultron and avenge Quicksilver’s death and becomes more independent in Civil War, by rejecting the accords and her confinement to Avengers headquarters. By Infinity War she is definitely in charge of her life, managing to hide from the authorities and having a secret relationship with Vision. Plus her telekinetic abilities have gotten more and more powerful. That fight scene with the Children of Thanos in Infinity War showed that she really had mastered her powers at that point. Also I’m interested given that Disney is probably buying out Fox to see what the Fantastic Four and X-men will look like in the MCU.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

Originally Posted by Reddish Mage

More interesting is whether the idea that majority-minority-movies can't make it big is an actual thing that Hollywood studios actually believe. Whether Disney executives buy into this idea (maybe their movies are unrepresentative for other reasons?), or whether Disney is willing to promote movies for diversity sake.

Unrepresentative how? Compared to what?

For me, navel-gazing about how Hollywood has been historically is what's truly uninteresting. I care about what they're doing now, and movies like Force Awakens and Black Panther are the tip of that spear.

Originally Posted by The Giant

But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

I feel kind of bad for the OP. He wanted women's opinions on Marvel movies, got answers from a bunch of guys (most of whom didn't even bother to say "I'm not a woman but..." first), had the one (?) woman who bothered to answer chased off by the guys telling her her opinions were wrong, then had the entire thread derailed.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

I feel kind of bad for the OP. He wanted women's opinions on Marvel movies, got answers from a bunch of guys (most of whom didn't even bother to say "I'm not a woman but..." first), had the one (?) woman who bothered to answer chased off by the guys telling her her opinions were wrong, then had the entire thread derailed.

I dont. Almost all threads with such a broad topic gets diverted. Why should this be any different ?

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

Originally Posted by BWR

I feel kind of bad for the OP. He wanted women's opinions on Marvel movies, got answers from a bunch of guys (most of whom didn't even bother to say "I'm not a woman but..." first), had the one (?) woman who bothered to answer chased off by the guys telling her her opinions were wrong, then had the entire thread derailed.

I didn't think Faily's opinions were wrong, they just paint an incomplete picture. Marvel's back-catalog (never mind every Hollywood movie that came before) is what it is, no amount of hand-wringing will change that. We've gotten the next two years worth of release schedule, that should be the focus.

Originally Posted by The Giant

But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

I didn't think Faily's opinions were wrong, they just paint an incomplete picture. Marvel's back-catalog (never mind every Hollywood movie that came before) is what it is, no amount of hand-wringing will change that. We've gotten the next two years worth of release schedule, that should be the focus.

And it does seem they are willing to tread new ground with Captain Marvel.
I am kinda curious about how it will go.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

Originally Posted by lord_khaine

And it does seem they are willing to tread new ground with Captain Marvel.
I am kinda curious about how it will go.

I’m really curious about Captain Marvel as well. Interested to see what the MCU is going to do with her character. Also apparently the Skrulls are involved so that’s a bonus for me since I like the Fantastic Four and Marvel’s cosmic stuff in general.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

I'm really excited to see Captain Marvel. Which is something I didn't exactly feel when it was announced, because it and Black Panther emerged prior to some of the significant changes within Marvel Studios' leadership and there were a number of suggestions then that there was an effort to undercut Captain Marvel's quality, in particularly with funding. That It took a rather long while for casting to be announced, a director to be found, and that Captain Marvel's release date was pushed back a year further suggested it was something of a back-burner project they were doing begrudgingly.

However, for the last year or so it's become clear that the Studio's much more behind it. Brie Larson's an excellent choice to play Carol Danvers - better than most fan or media choices - with a strong screen presence and acting range, particularly for a character who can be both quite vulnerable and yet has to be strong -- it's a difficult role, really. The directorial team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck which fit the recent trend of Marvel hiring very skilled but lesser known talents for the director's chair and giving them ludicrous amounts of moneys to work with. Then there's the fact that Carol Danvers as a character is clearly slated for a significant role in the second half of the Infinity War - whatever it's eventually titled - which is far from hiding the Captain Marvel character away as some niche side-project they can jettison freely.

Plus, one of the screen writers is from GLOW - which has some just phenomenal writing, and is also a period piece.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

Originally Posted by Kitten Champion

I'm really excited to see Captain Marvel. Which is something I didn't exactly feel when it was announced, because it and Black Panther emerged prior to some of the significant changes within Marvel Studios' leadership and there were a number of suggestions then that there was an effort to undercut Captain Marvel's quality, in particularly with funding. That It took a rather long while for casting to be announced, a director to be found, and that Captain Marvel's release date was pushed back a year further suggested it was something of a back-burner project they were doing begrudgingly.

However, for the last year or so it's become clear that the Studio's much more behind it. Brie Larson's an excellent choice to play Carol Danvers - better than most fan or media choices - with a strong screen presence and acting range, particularly for a character who can be both quite vulnerable and yet has to be strong -- it's a difficult role, really. The directorial team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck which fit the recent trend of Marvel hiring very skilled but lesser known talents for the director's chair and giving them ludicrous amounts of moneys to work with. Then there's the fact that Carol Danvers as a character is clearly slated for a significant role in the second half of the Infinity War - whatever it's eventually titled - which is far from hiding the Captain Marvel character away as some niche side-project they can jettison freely.

Plus, one of the screen writers is from GLOW - which has some just phenomenal writing, and is also a period piece.

I’m glad to hear Captain Marvel has a top notch production team working on the film. I like Captain Marvel a lot, since I was introduced to the character through Avengers Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. She has a similar vibe to Captain America, as in a military service member that has to contend with becoming someone even more powerful and important. Also my guess is that they are going to set her up as Cap’s successor, and she will probably end leading the avengers.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

Hello, everyone.
I'm writing a paper for my media and cultural industries class and maybe some of you can give me a hand.

The paper is on how cultural products are consumed. The specific case is Iron Man 2, as representative of the MCU.

Lol Iron Man II is one of the worst MCU films. Most fans highly dislike it for not offering much other than being a prequel to the Avengers. It had some touching moments but overall was weak. Not a good representation of the MCU as a whole, they've improved significantly since then.

The question I'm intested in is as follows: for those of you who are female and enjoy these movies, why would you say that they have such an appeal to girls or women (compared to other products of the same action/adventure genre, traditionally marketed and mainly enjoyed by male boys/adults)?

I'm not sure the MCU has a greater female fanbase than other forms of mass media like Star Wars or Harry Potter.

Maybe it does better then other action films, you need to compile all the audiences of the films to compare.

Though I have seen a lot of Loki fangirls in the past... so that may have something to do with it.

Why do you like the MCU movies?

Because they are usually entertaining films which are also cool and have relatable characters.

The reasons why a man or woman would like these film would mostly be the same.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

Originally Posted by Zmeoaice

Lol Iron Man II is one of the worst MCU films. Most fans highly dislike it for not offering much other than being a prequel to the Avengers. It had some touching moments but overall was weak. Not a good representation of the MCU as a whole, they've improved significantly since then.

Yeah, it's very much a "this MCU thing is shaping into a success, but we need to fill this long blank area on our production schedule. Let's do a treading-water sequel with our existing assets to keep the buzz going" perfunctory kind of thing, which mostly coasted on Robert Downey Jr. being charismatic for 90 minutes.

I don't know anyone who rates it especially highly, as opposed to the generally well-liked if a little dated first Iron Man and polarizing but still objectively successful third one.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

I'd put forward a case that Iron Man 2 was the single worst/most irrelevant movie in the entire MCU, with absolutely nothing of importance carrying forward into the franchise. Even Thor 2 at least had the Loki-replaces-Odin plot point that set up for the events of Ragnarok, but IM2 was, as mentioned, '90 minutes of RDJ being charismatic'.

Originally Posted by Red Fel, on quest rewards

"Is a stack of ten pancakes too many pancakes to give to the party, even if most of them fell on the floor and one or two were stepped on? I wanted to give my party pancakes as a reward but I'm unsure if it's too much. The pancakes are also laced with blowfish poison so the party would have to get an antitoxin before they could eat the ones which weren't pulverized by shoes."

I don't think anyone would want those pancakes even if you paid them to eat them.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

This is exactly what they were thinking. Think about this logically - if they had low expectations for Black Panther, the budget would have reflected that as a riskier investment.

You seem to have misunderstood my main points. First, "low expectations" doesn't always mean "low expected value," it could also mean low certainty, but with a high potential upside, in a field where investors can be risk averse. Second, value isn't purely measured in box office revenue. As I already stated, the MCU is a brand. Even if the analysts decided that Black Panther would necessarily be low EV, financially speaking, if those same analysts decided that not giving Black Panther a standalone movie would be a bad idea, and that--in your words--giving it "the budget [that] would have reflect that as a riskier investment" (or as I would say, giving it a noticeably crappier budget than the other MCU movies) would possibly result in fan backlash, then they're going to give Black Panther a good budget.

Look, I'm not without some experience in the field of uncertain decisions involving fairly large amounts of money, and I'm telling you, the smart choices change based on the size of the gambles as a proportion of your total resources. If you're a producer who can afford to invest in only one or two movies at a time, then certainty has a higher priority--getting wiped out doesn't just mean losing a lot of money, it means losing most of your future opportunities to make money. If you're a big enough studio with either a lot of capital on hand, or a tremendous pool of consistent investors, then you can start acting like the hedge fund of movie producers. You can take more high risk, high reward ventures because you're investing in so many that even if a few fail spectacularly, the rest will make good your losses, and then some. You can literally hedge--for example, by investing in a less popular niches that are likely to do well if an unexpected shift tanks the safe bets. More uniquely to mass market industries, they're also in a better position to turn intangible benefits into tangible gains.

Re: What do you like about Marvel movies?

Originally Posted by Xyril

You seem to have misunderstood my main points. First, "low expectations" doesn't always mean "low expected value," it could also mean low certainty, but with a high potential upside, in a field where investors can be risk averse. Second, value isn't purely measured in box office revenue. As I already stated, the MCU is a brand. Even if the analysts decided that Black Panther would necessarily be low EV, financially speaking, if those same analysts decided that not giving Black Panther a standalone movie would be a bad idea, and that--in your words--giving it "the budget [that] would have reflect that as a riskier investment" (or as I would say, giving it a noticeably crappier budget than the other MCU movies) would possibly result in fan backlash, then they're going to give Black Panther a good budget.

They could've given it a budget on par with other gambles like Doctor Strange or Ant-Man without causing any kind of backlash like that. Instead they gave it proven-property-sequel money. They wouldn't have done that lightly, that's all I'm saying.

And lord knows the marketing budget (which is counted separately from that of the film) would have been much higher for BP. I didn't see any Kendrick albums or shoe deals for Ant-Man after all.

Originally Posted by Xyril

Look, I'm not without some experience in the field of uncertain decisions involving fairly large amounts of money, and I'm telling you, the smart choices change based on the size of the gambles as a proportion of your total resources. If you're a producer who can afford to invest in only one or two movies at a time, then certainty has a higher priority--getting wiped out doesn't just mean losing a lot of money, it means losing most of your future opportunities to make money. If you're a big enough studio with either a lot of capital on hand, or a tremendous pool of consistent investors, then you can start acting like the hedge fund of movie producers. You can take more high risk, high reward ventures because you're investing in so many that even if a few fail spectacularly, the rest will make good your losses, and then some. You can literally hedge--for example, by investing in a less popular niches that are likely to do well if an unexpected shift tanks the safe bets. More uniquely to mass market industries, they're also in a better position to turn intangible benefits into tangible gains.

Right, hence me agreeing with the tail end of your post (the part I quoted.) We're aligned.

Originally Posted by The Giant

But really, the important lesson here is this: Rather than making assumptions that don't fit with the text and then complaining about the text being wrong, why not just choose different assumptions that DO fit with the text?